Jaap de Roode: How butterflies self-medicate

Translator: Dewi Barnas Reviewer: Yustina Suryanti

So infectious diseases, right?

Jadi, penyakit menular, kan?

Infectious diseases are still the main cause

Penyakit menular masih menjadi penyebab utama

of human suffering and death around the world.

penderitaan dan kematian manusia di dunia.

Every year, millions of people die of diseases such as T.B., malaria, HIV,

Setiap tahun jutaan orang meninggal akibat penyakit seperti TB, malaria, HIV,

around the world and even in the United States.

di seluruh dunia dan bahkan di Amerika Serikat.

Every year, thousands of Americans die of seasonal flu.

Setiap tahun ribuan penduduk Amerika meninggal karena flu musiman.

Now of course, humans, we are creative. Right?

Tentu saja, manusia itu kreatif, kan?

We have come up with ways to protect ourselves against these diseases.

Kita telah menemukan cara melindungi diri dari penyakit itu.

We have drugs and vaccines.

Kita punya obat dan vaksin.

And we're conscious -- we learn from our experiences

Dan kita punya kesadaran. Kita belajar dari pengalaman

and come up with creative solutions.

dan menemukan solusi kreatif.

We used to think we're alone in this, but now we know we're not.

Kita sempat berpikir bahwa kita sendiri, tapi ternyata tidak.

We're not the only medical doctors.

Kita bukan dokter medis satu-satunya.

Now we know that there's a lot of animals out there that can do it too.

Sekarang kita tahu banyak hewan di luar sana juga bisa melakukannya.

Most famous, perhaps, chimpanzees.

Paling terkenal mungkin simpanse.

Not so much different from us,

Tidak jauh berbeda dari kita,

they can use plants to treat their intestinal parasites.

mereka bisa memakai tumbuhan untuk mengatasi parasit usus.

But the last few decades have shown us that other animals can do it too:

Tapi beberapa dekade terakhir menunjukkan hewan lain pun bisa:

elephants, porcupines, sheep, goats, you name it.

gajah, landak, domba, kambing, sebut saja.

And even more interesting than that is that recent discoveries are telling us

Lebih menarik lagi dari itu adalah bahwa penemuan terbaru memberitahu kita

that insects and other little animals with smaller brains can use medication too.

bahwa serangga dan hewan kecil dengan otak lebih kecilpun bisa menggunakan obat.

The problem with infectious diseases, as we all know,

Masalah dengan penyakit menular, seperti kita tahu,

is that pathogens continue to evolve,

adalah patogen yang terus berubah,

and a lot of the drugs that we have developed

dan banyak obat-obatan yang sudah dikembangkan

are losing their efficacy.

kehilangan kemanjurannya.

And therefore, there is this great need to find new ways to discover drugs

Sehingga ada kebutuhan mendesak untuk menemukan cara baru mendapatkan obat

that we can use against our diseases.

yang bisa kita pakai melawan penyakit.

Now, I think that we should look at these animals,

Sekarang menurutku kita harus melihat hewan-hewan ini

and we can learn from them how to treat our own diseases.

dan kita bisa belajar dari mereka bagaimana merawat penyakit kita.

As a biologist, I have been studying monarch butterflies for the last 10 years.

Sebagai ahli biologi, aku telah meneliti kupu-kupu monarch selama 10 tahun terakhir.

Now, monarchs are extremely famous for their spectacular migrations

Monarch terkenal karena migrasinya yang luar biasa

from the U.S. and Canada down to Mexico every year,

dari Amerika Serikat dan Kanada ke Meksiko setiap tahun,

where millions of them come together,

tempat jutaan dari mereka berkumpul,

but it's not why I started studying them.

tapi bukan karena itu aku mulai meneliti mereka.

I study monarchs because they get sick.

Aku meneliti monarch karena mereka bisa sakit.

They get sick like you. They get sick like me.

Mereka bisa sakit, sepertimu dan sepertiku.

And I think what they do can tell us a lot about drugs

Dan menurutku perilaku mereka dapat memberitahu banyak

that we can develop for humans.

untuk pengembangan obat manusia.

Now, the parasites that monarchs get infected with

Jadi, parasit yang menginfeksi monarch

are called ophryocystis elektroscirrha -- a mouthful.

disebut Ophryocystis elektroscirrha -- sulit disebut.

What they do is they produce spores,

Yang mereka lakukan memproduksi spora

millions of spores on the outside of the butterfly

jutaan spora di permukaan tubuh kupu-kupu

that are shown as little specks in between the scales of the butterfly.

Yang nampak sebagai titik-titik kecil diantara sisik kupu-kupu.

And this is really detrimental to the monarch.

Dan ini sangat berbahaya bagi monarch.

It shortens their lifespan,

Memperpendek umurnya,

it reduces their ability to fly,

mengurangi kemampuan terbangnya,

it can even kill them before they're even adults.

bahkan bisa membunuh mereka sebelum tahap dewasa.

Very detrimental parasite.

Parasit yang sangat berbahaya.

As part of my job, I spend a lot of time in the greenhouse growing plants,

Sebagai bagian pekerjaanku, aku banyak mengurus tumbuhan di rumah kaca

and the reason for this is that monarchs are extremely picky eaters.

dan alasannya adalah karena monarch sangat pemilih soal makanan.

They only eat milkweed as larvae.

Larvanya hanya memakan tumbuhan milkweed.

Luckily, there are several species of milkweed that they can use,

Untungnya, ada beberapa spesies milkweed yang bisa dipakai,

and all these milkweeds have cardenolides in them.

dan semuanya mengandung kardenolida.

These are chemicals that are toxic.

Senyawa kimia yang beracun.

They're toxic to most animals, but not to monarchs.

Bagi sebagian besar hewan tapi tidak bagi monarch.

In fact, monarchs can take up the chemicals,

Kenyataannya, senyawa kimia itu bisa dicernanya

put it in their own bodies, and it makes them toxic

dimasukkan dalam tubuh dan itu membuat mereka beracun

against their predators, such as birds.

bagi pemangsa mereka, misalnya burung.

And what they do, then, is advertise this toxicity

Dan kemudian mereka mengiklankan sifat racun ini

through their beautiful warning colorations

melalui warnanya yang indah sebagai peringatan

with this orange, black and white.

oranye, hitam, dan putih.

So what I did during my job is grow plants in the greenhouse,

Jadi yang kulakukan dalam pekerjaanku adalah menumbuhkan tanaman di rumah kaca,

different ones, different milkweeds.

yang berbeda, milkweed berbagai jenis.

Some were toxic, including the tropical milkweed,

Beberapa beracun, misalnya milkweed tropis

with very high concentrations of these cardenolides.

konsentrasi kardenolidanya sangat tinggi.

And some were not toxic.

Beberapa tidak beracun.

And then I fed them to monarchs.

Kemudian kujadikan pakan

Some of the monarchs were healthy. They had no disease.

Beberapa monarch sehat. Mereka tidak menderita penyakit.

But some of the monarchs were sick,

Tetapi sebagian lagi sakit,

and what I found is that some of these milkweeds are medicinal,

dan kutemukan beberapa jenis milkweed bersifat herbal

meaning they reduce the disease symptoms in the monarch butterflies,

artinya mengurangi gejala penyakit pada kupu-kupu monarch,

meaning these monarchs can live longer when they are infected

berarti mereka dapat hidup lebih lama ketika terinfeksi

when feeding on these medicinal plants.

bila memakan tumbuhan herbal ini.

And when I found this, I had this idea,

Dan ketika aku menemukannya aku punya ide

and a lot of people said it was a crazy idea,

dan banyak orang mengatakan itu ide gila.

but I thought, what if monarchs can use this?

Kupikir, bagaimana bila mereka mampu memakainya?

What if they can use these plants as their own form of medicine?

Bagaimana jika mereka bisa menjadikan ini obat?

What if they can act as medical doctors?

Bagaimana jika mereka bisa berperan sebagai dokter medis?

So my team and I started doing experiments.

Maka aku dan timku mulai bereksperimen.

In the first types of experiments,

Dalam eksperimen jenis pertama,

we had caterpillars, and gave them a choice:

kami punya ulat dan memberi mereka pilihan:

medicinal milkweed versus non-medicinal milkweed.

milkweed herbal dan milkweed biasa

And then we measured how much they ate of each species over their lifetime.

dan kami ukur jumlah yang mereka makan perspesies sepanjang hidup mereka.

And the result, as so often in science, was boring:

Hasilnya membosankan, seperti sering dijumpai dalam sains:

Fifty percent of their food was medicinal. Fifty percent was not.

Lima puluh persen herbal, lima puluh persen tidak.

These caterpillars didn't do anything for their own welfare.

Ulat-ulat ini tidak melakukan apapun untuk kesejahteraan mereka.

So then we moved on to adult butterflies,

Jadi kita berpindah ke kupu-kupu dewasa,

and we started asking the question

dan kita mulai mengajukan pertanyaan

whether it's the mothers that can medicate their offspring.

apakah para ibu yang bisa mengobati keturunannya.

Can the mothers lay their eggs on medicinal milkweed

Bisakah para ibu bertelur di daun herbal

that will make their future offspring less sick?

yang bisa membuat keturunannya lebih tahan sakit?

We have done these experiments now over several years,

Kami telah bereksperimen bertahun-tahun

and always get the same results.

dan hasilnya selalu sama.

What we do is we put a monarch in a big cage,

Kami kurung monarch di kandang besar,

a medicinal plant on one side, a non-medicinal plant on the other side,

Satu sisi tanaman herbal, sisi lain yang biasa

and then we measure the number of eggs that the monarchs lay on each plant.

Dan kami menghitung jumlah telur di tiap tumbuhan.

And what we find when we do that is always the same.

Yang kami temukan selalu sama.

What we find is that the monarchs strongly prefer the medicinal milkweed.

Kami menemukan bahwa monarch jauh lebih memilih milkweed herbal.

In other words, what these females are doing

Dengan kata lain, para betina ini

is they're laying 68 percent of their eggs in the medicinal milkweed.

bertelur 68% di milkweed herbal.

Intriguingly, what they do is they actually transmit the parasites

Menariknya, yang mereka lakukan sebenarnya memindahkan parasit

when they're laying the eggs.

ketika bertelur.

They cannot prevent this.

Ini tidak bisa mereka cegah.

They can also not medicate themselves.

Mereka juga bisa tak mengobati dirinya.

But what these experiments tell us

Tapi apa yang ditemukan eksperimen ini

is that these monarchs, these mothers, can lay their eggs on medicinal milkweed

adalah bahwa para ibu monarch ini bisa bertelur di milkweed herbal

that will make their future offspring less sick.

yang bisa membuat keturunannya lebih jarang sakit.

Now, this is a really important discovery, I think,

Saya pikir ini sebuah penemuan yang sangat penting,

not just because it tells us something cool about nature,

bukan hanya memberitahu kita kehebatan alam

but also because it may tell us something more about how we should find drugs.

namun juga karena mengandung informasi menemukan obat.

Now, these are animals that are very small

Hewan-hewan ini sangat kecil

and we tend to think of them as very simple.

seringnya kita anggap mereka begitu biasa.

They have tiny little brains,

Otak mereka sangat kecil,

yet they can do this very sophisticated medication.

tapi mereka bisa melakukan pengobatan secanggih ini.

Now, we know that even today, most of our drugs

Kita tahu bahwa saat inipun, kebanyakan obat kita

derive from natural products, including plants,

berasal dari bahan alami, termasuk tanaman,

and in indigenous cultures,

dan pada kebudayaan asli,

traditional healers often look at animals to find new drugs.

dukun tradisional sering meniru pengobatan ala hewan.

In this way, elephants have told us how to treat stomach upset,

Misalnya, cara mengatasi sakit perut ala gajah,

and porcupines have told people how to treat bloody diarrhea.

dan landak memberitahu bagaimana mengatasi diare berdarah.

What I think is important, though, is to move beyond

Apa yang menurutku penting adalah melampaui

these large-brained mammals and give these guys more credit,

mamalia berotak besar ini dan lebih menghargainya,

these simple animals, these insects that we tend to think of

hewan-hewan sederhana, serangga yang seringkali kita anggap

as very, very simple with tiny little brains.

sangat, sangat remeh dengan otak kecil mereka.

The discovery that these animals can also use medication

Penemuan bahwa mereka juga bisa menggunakan mengobatan

opens up completely new avenues,

membuka cakrawala baru,

and I think that maybe one day, we will be treating human diseases

dan kupikir suatu hari kita akan mengobati penyakit manusia

with drugs that were first discovered by butterflies,

dengan obat yang pertama kali ditemukan kupu-kupu,

and I think that is an amazing opportunity worth pursuing.

dan menurutku itu kesempatan luar biasa yang pantas dikejar.

Thank you so much.

Terima kasih.

(Applause)

(Tepuk tangan)